Ballast at Tamworth station

[resin001]

I am in the process of ballasting track on my new layout - trying to get ballast LAID carefully inbetween sleepers with an even spread , no overspill and so on .....

 

On Saturday , I went by train from Tamworth to BNS and took the following photo of carfefully laid ballast !!!!! Just shows how the real thing is done - also I found the variation in ballast colours very interesting.

[gismorail]

Not sure what age your layout is set in but would say that the appearance of ballast is very different today than it used to be in the BR period.

[Fat Controller]

Not sure what age your layout is set in but would say that the appearance of ballast is very different today than it used to be in the BR period.

Ballast is sourced from far fewer quarries these days, and I believe almost all is of granite/granitic origin. Ballast used to be sourced from the nearest available source of hard rock- the Western used a lot of carboniferous limestone from quarries such as as those around the Forest of Dean and South Wales in Wales and on the main route to London, but a lot of the Devon/Cornwall lines had a reddish-tinged rock from a quarry in South Devon (Hemerdon?). The LMR used a lot of granite-type rock from sources in Leicestershire,,as well as Shap and Penmaenmawr. I'm not sure where the southern bits of the ER drew their ballast from, but the North-Eastern used Belford, and a quarry near Hadrian's Wall (both igneous of some sort). The Southern drew a lot of stone from Meldon, but a lot of the SER and LC&DR had used beach shingle from Dungeness and other local sources, and had even used loco ash on parts of their main lines (I watched it been dug out around Westenhanger and Sandling twenty years back, during the Channel Tunnel upgrade).

All three ballasts in the photo are of igneous origin, I'd say- the bottom one is a granite with a high proportion of pegmatite (hence the pink colour), whilst the top one looks like diorite or similar. The one prperty all these share is that they are very hard-wearing, so there is less of a problem of 'fines' formed by ballast degradation clogging the drainage.

[Rivercider]

Ballast is sourced from far fewer quarries these days, and I believe almost all is of granite/granitic origin. Ballast used to be sourced from the nearest available source of hard rock- the Western used a lot of carboniferous limestone from quarries such as as those around the Forest of Dean and South Wales in Wales and on the main route to London, but a lot of the Devon/Cornwall lines had a reddish-tinged rock from a quarry in South Devon (Hemerdon?).

 

In the 1970/80s the WR received ballast from 5 locations, Stoneycombe west of Newton Abbot produced poorer quality and was therefore restricted to branches, and on the mainline west of Plymouth, Meldon (reckoned to be the best) ballast was used by the WR as well as by the SR. Tintern/Tidenham and Machen ballast was used on mainlines in S Wales and in the London area, and finally Penderyn/Hirwaun, use of which was restricted to S Wales branches, and west of Swansea I believe,

 

cheers

[resin001]

I forgot to mention as well - note concrete sleepers on the top line and wooden sleepers on the bottom line - photo taken from high level main line platform

[Edwin_m]

The far track is probably laid by one of the high-output machines, being of the latest type using Pandrol E-clips. Not obvious from that photo but you'll probably find the sleepers are at a closer spacing too - Peco may have unintentionally got this one right! I had a brilliant photo looking straight down from a footbridge at a similar situation in Scotland, but for the life of me I can't now find it.

[Trog]

The far track is probably laid by one of the high-output machines, being of the latest type using Pandrol E-clips.

 

As the track is in a platform it will not have been laid using one of the high-output machines as they do not fit through platforms.

 

The clips are the green 1504 type fastclips for use with both 113A and CEN60 rail, on what looks like type G44 concrete sleepers.

 

The nearer road with the hardwood sleepers has NRS1 baseplates, again these can be used with both 113A and CEN60 rails.

 

I can not tell from the photo which section of rail has been used on each line, but it you can get a closer look the clues to look for are....

 

For G44 sleepers white nylons and pads with the corners cut off at 45' is CEN60 rail.

For G44 sleepers blue and black nylons and pads with square corners is 113A rail.

 

For NRS1 baseplates green nylons is CEN60 rail.

For NRS1 baseplates red and yellow nylons is 113A rail.

[phil-b259]

I am in the process of ballasting track on my new layout - trying to get ballast LAID carefully inbetween sleepers with an even spread , no overspill and so on .....

 

 

Ballast management (or the lack of it these days) has a lot to do with increased mechanisation of the relaying process coupled with the introduction of progressivley heaver CWR, which requires a grater depth of ballast as well as a bigger ballast sholder to keep the rail in place. In an ideal world ballast should not be left in a long line over the sleepers in the 4ft, it makes life difficilt for patrollers and others (who given the sate of most cess routes thses days) walk in the 4ft. as well as having the potental to hide damage to the sleepers themselves as well as damage things like cables clipped to the sleepers,etc. Also where timber sleepers are used, being covered in ballast only helps them decay quicker (due to the damp conditions under the ballast pile), indead many heritage railways keep ballast off wooden sleepers to prolong their life. However this can only really be effectivley done by manual labour, especially what with all the extra stuff being fitted to the 4ft these days however that is exactly the area that has suffered form modern relaying techniques. Also with the preasure on these days to keep engineering posessions limited to the shortest length of time possable, tidying up afterwards is one of those activaties that has to fall by the wayside.